You wouldn’t know it from Tet Zoo’s content, but for many, many months now I’ve been working continually on ichthyosaurs, the ‘fish lizards’ of the Mesozoic. I’m not ready to talk about the project yet, but will do at some stage. An awful lot has happened on ichthyosaurs since the late 1990s, mostly thanks to the research of Ryosuke* Motani and Michael Maisch and their collagues, but to be honest things have become quieter in the last few years and we certainly are not in any sort of ‘ichthyosaur research renaissance’ as we are with plesiosaurs, dinosaurs, pterosaurs and Mesozoic crocodilians. Here in Britain for example, I’m not aware of anyone doing a devoted post-grad project on Ichthyosauria…
When it comes to any given tetrapod group, most interested people have some sort of ‘working cladogram’ in their heads.. alas, this seems not to be the case for ichthyosaurs. Let’s face it, you need to have kept a pretty good eye on the literature to know what’s going on. The above composite (taken from a talk I give on ichthyosaur diversity and evolution) shows, approximately, the current state of affairs: it is both highly simplified (with loads of taxa left out), and ‘consensus’ (viz, sort of a ‘best fit’ cladogram, as different studies have argued for different patterns of relationship). I include it here only as a pretty picture, as I know it’s too small for the text to be easily seen. I’ll follow up on all of this at some stage. Finally, the little images used above come from various sources and I apologise for stealing the work of various artists: many are by Ken Kirkland and come from Richard Hilton’s excellent Dinosaurs and Other Mesozoic Reptiles of California (2003, Uni Calif Press), the Stenopterygius is by Greg Paul, and the Leptonectes is by John Sibbick. Various others come from wikipedia. It’s very difficult to find accurate restorations of ichthyosaurs – most of what’s out there is awful – and what you see above includes the best of the best.

I suspect that Hupehsuchus is not on the list because it’s not an ichthyosaur proper. It’s questionably an ichythiopterygian, though. And we need a full-size version of that picture. Behold–my new wallpaper!

I’m curious, we have mammals, fish (teleosts) and amphibians that carry young in pouches – are there/ where there any known instances of reptilian/dinosaurian/avian pouches for carrying young?

I can think of some fairly good reasons why it doesn’t occur among birds, and I think I’d probably have seen something somewhere if there was serious suggestion of it occuring for any dinosaurs, but what about reptiles more generally? If not is there any obvious functional reason why it should not occur?

And here’s a fifth call for a bigger version of your beautiful ichthy-cladogram. (You watch, someone will get in there while Im keying away and I’ll just look like a plonker for saying fifth when I actually turn out to be ninth or tenth!)

— Hupehsuchians: while purported to be close to Ichthyopterygia (or Ichthyosauria sensu Maisch & Matzke) by Motani (1999), they are not ichthyopterygians so were not included. The question as to exactly what ichthyopterygians (or hupehsuchians + ichthyopterygians) are remains, though they’re likely to be diapsids.

— In the cladogram shown here, what is the sister-taxon to the Shonisaurus + Shastasaurus clade, and why does it appear to lack hindlimbs? It’s the Italian shastasaur Besanosaurus leptorhynchus Dal Sasso & Pinna, 1996, and the picture used here is F. Fogliazza’s drawing from Cristiano Dal Sasso’s Dinosaurs of Italy (2004, Indiana Uni Press). It doesn’t lack hindfins, it’s just that the animal is illustrated with the right hindfin seen ‘edge on’. The tail fin is also obscured because of perspective. Incidentally, you can read my review of Dal Sasso’s book here (review is on pp. 79-82). Incidentally # 2, very cool news on shastasaurs due to appear some time this year (hopefully!!).

— What was ‘felizkrill’ on about? I have no idea, but it was nothing to do with tetrapod zoology. The commenter has been banned.

— What are the most common mistakes people make when restoring ichthyosaurs? Incorrect proportions and body shapes, incorrect fin shapes, over-simplified skull shapes, wrong numbers of teeth…. the biggest problem is that lots of reconstructed ichthyosaurs are just generic, all-purpose creatures lacking the subtleties and anatomical details present in all taxa, INCLUDING ICHTHYOSAURUS! Of course, we also have the problem that very few of the taxa have been reconstructed in the first place.

— Am I doing for ichthyosaurs what Unwin’s The Pterosaurs From Deep Time did for pterosaurs? Sorry, but no no no. I can say no more at this time.

I like the new, forward-looking profile. I predict a far-ranging, varied life. Take a good look, we may have the next David Attenborough here. He’ll need to practice starting sentences in Patagonia and finishing them in Iceland.

Yes, the sungrebe does indeed have pouches (underneath the wings) that carry the young (even during flight (!)). Only the male sungrebe however has these pouches and along with them the special flaps of skin that keep the young in. During flight it is possible to see the little heads of the chicks peeking out.

. . . Wow. That’s just so amazingly bizarre. But why does only the male have them?

On a vaguely related note, can anybody point me to a decent online summary of the Early Cretaceous flora and fauna of northeastern Africa? I’m interested particularly in Sudan. I get a lot of hits for palynology, but I want something broader.

Also, another call for a bigger version of the cladogram. Mesozoic sea monsters are so cool!

Nannopterygius is one of my favourites and is known from a complete skeleton (BMNH 46497, currently panel-mounted in the NHM palaeo corridor, about 3 m off the ground), plus two referred, incomplete specimens (neither of which have been properly described). I was going to include it in the cladogram but ended up not doing so because views on what it is differ so wildly: McGowan & Motani (2003) included it among ophthalmosaurids (which looks mightily unlikely to me) while Maisch & Matzke (2000) placed it somewhere near the base of Thunnosauria, near to Suevoleviathan (which is also missing from the cladogram above).

For those who don’t know, Nannopterygius has to be one of the most remarkable ichthyosaurs: it has tiny, tiny, massively abbreviated limbs, a reduced pectoral girdle with stretched coracoids, slender, cylindrical ribs and evidence for hefty tail musculature. It was weird.

Without meaning to diss my good friend Richard, the old idea that ichthyosaurs are not clearly reptiles and might as well be basal tetrapods or something is woefully out of date (it was promoted in the early 20th century by von Huene and mostly hinges on the presence of folded tooth bases in ichthyosaurs). We now have basal forms with a diapsid skull structure (plus remnants of this condition in later taxa), and ichthyosaurs also resemble diapsids in palatal morphology. Most/all studies that have coded characters from diverse tetrapod clades find ichthyosaurs close to, or part of, the lepidosaur-archosauromorph clade (which has unfortunately been named Sauria).

Now that I know the name Platypterygius, I’ve found a larger version of the image, and I realize that the picture isn’t quite what I thought it was. I assumed that the image was a profile, whereas in reality the animal was shown in the middle of a turn. Everything makes sense now, and it’s not as freaky as I thought.

I don’t think that Richard (and my apologies to him for misspelling Forrest) took the idea that ichthyosaurs are amphibians that seriously. But it certainly made me think “outside the box” for a few minutes. And given the news group that we were posting on at the time, that’s to be expected/encouraged. Thanks for the phylogenetic clarification.

Darren, although I love ichtyosaurs just as anyone else, I’m impatient to read the marsupial stuff. I’ve had an online conversation with someone (a biologist, apparently), who talked about the superiority of placentals on marsupials as a “scientific consensus”, stating that kangaroos wouldn’t last long if transplanted in the African savannah. All this anti-pouchism always makes me sad. I tried to play the (Tasmanian, of course) devil’s advocate, but to no avail. So I’ll be glad if you can slip a few words about this Great Debate…

Zach (and anyone), drop an email to michael.h.anderson at mckesson dot com and I’ll fire you some after I get back (July 18). Please specify if you want full resolution or desktop wallpaper ðŸ™‚

I have followed the Shoni story since excavation began – the funny thing is this trip to Alberta has been planned for months, but I only found out about the debut at Tyrell last week. Nice coincidence.

If I read correctly, you place the genus Excalibosaurus in the picture, but this genus isn’t one anymore, because it is considered as juvenile Eurhinosaurus by Maisch & Matzke (2000) if i remember correctly.

PS: I’m the guy from Belgium who sent you an e-mail 2 weeks ago about Ph D’s in england on “eotyrannus@gmail.com” but received no answer, it this adress correct?

Hi Valentin. Sorry for my lack of response to your email – I’m afraid your message is in a long queue and I haven’t gotten round to dealing with it. Please don’t take this personally.

You are correct about Maisch & Matzke’s (2000) proposal that Excalibosaurus is synonymous with Eurhinosaurus. However, this was contested by McGowan (2003) and McGowan & Motani (2003). Maisch & Matzke argued that the two were essentially the same, only differing in the extent of the overbite. The new specimen described by McGowan (2003) showed that this is not correct: they differ in vertebral count and limb morphology, and the overbite doesn’t just differ in extent, but in how it has been achieved (Eurhinosaurus has a drastically shortened lower jaw, for example).

Yes the famous ichthyosaur war ðŸ™‚ I don’t know who to trust anymore. I ‘ve just checked the Mc Gowan paper of 2003. I think the extend of the lower jaw can be a poor character, but the fin elements are really different, that’s totally right!

It’s great to have such a great person to talk to about ichthyosaurs, it keeps me improving!

I’d also like to see a bigger version of the splendidly looking cladogram, if it happens that you used some of my stuff (the Temnodontosaurus skull looks familiar^^), I can assist you with any copyright things if necessary.

And, btw, methinks that Excalibo turned out to be a valid taxon. As long as only its skull and some odds & ends were known it looked pretty much like Eurhinosaurus, but that has changed with the complete skeleton. I listed it as a valid taxon in my Habilitation Thesis which is (and hopefully will remain) unpublished.

I know you are extremely busy these days, but I have a Ichthyosaur favour to ask…

Over on ART Evolved we are doing an Ichthyosaur gallery in June, and as of such we’re starting to get everyone thinking about all things fish lizard.

You mention above how almost all Ichthyo art is awful. Would I be able to humbly request a simply explanation of either what makes most of the stuff out there terrible, and/or what makes for a good Ichthyosaur reconstruction.

Which ever is shortest and quickest for you to do (a paragraph version even would go a long way, though should you suddenly find yourself with time to spare, we’d love to host a guest article ðŸ˜› though again the short paragraph version would be more than enough to make you our hero!).

The net result should hopefully be a couple dozen new totally awesome Naish standard Ichthyosaur drawings entering existence!